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Canon 1D C vs Sony A7S 4K - dynamic range - preview


Andrew Reid
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How are you determining the extra stop advantage for the 1DC?

It's clear the A7S isn't doing much (any?) NR for HDMI 4K, so it's necessary to use NR in post.

Did you see bezerk55's example? He followed the instructions on how to fix the A7S HDMI Slog2 in post. The 1DC and A7S image match fairly well and it's clear the A7S has more DR in both shadows and highlights.

What comes out of the camera/recorder is less important than how far you can push it in post. When pushed to the limit in post, the example I created shows clearly more detail in the shadows and highlights. On the leftmost image pair, the 1DC completely loses detail in the white Canon lens (70-200?). There's nothing that can be done to the 1DC image to bring out more detail. The highlights are closer, but the A7S recovers more blown-out area.

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EOSHD Pro Color 5 for Sony cameras EOSHD Z LOG for Nikon CamerasEOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs

Canon EoS 1DC make better image, in our test color and definition are really impressive. Sony a7s with Shogun is good but not enough to bit the 1DC image. I know are very different in price class but this is the reality.

At the moment I don't have a fast connection so I upload a little original clip of the 1DC:

http://www.mediafire.com/watch/utu9pre07x6t3ud

,

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The purpose really was to look at the source file and see the differences.

You can certainly grade it that's what you're meant to do with LOG.

Though even after grading I'm not happy with what's going on over HDMI with S-LOG. Needs a fix!

 

​If you're trying to compare source files to see differences, and then go on to complain that the 0-255 file has deeper blacks than the 16(32?)-255 file, that doesn't sound like a rational or fair comparison to me. Properly matching your source levels to your output levels isn't grading. And getting your black and white points to match when you are specifically comparing DR and talking about "crushing blacks" would seem to me like the first thing you would want to do.

Within the a7s itself, the cine1 gamma goes to superwhites and the cine2 gamma doesn't. If you didn't know/understand this and just looked at them both to "see differences" and declared "the cine1 highlights are clipped, this needs to be fixed!", or "the cine2 highlights are washed out, this needs to be fixed", then that would be incorrect.

As far as noise goes, there is clearly more noise reduction going on in the 1dc (regardless of what the camera is telling you) than the a7s which appears to be applying none or little. I personally would prefer to apply some chroma NR on the a7s file in post (just like I do to all my RAW photos) and keep some grain-like luma noise and the extra detail, than have the baked in NR and loss of details on the 1dc. And if I wanted to do luma NR on tha a7s file as well, then I have that choice I can make in post with the trade-off in details.

It's starting to sound like a case of post purchase rationalisation for the 1dc at this point.

Having said that, I think we can all agree that colours on the a7s are a pain in the ass!

 

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How are you determining the extra stop advantage for the 1DC?

​With my eyes! You can't see it? Crushed blacks and a highlight that burns sooner on the A7S S-LOG? C'mon dude. Black is black you can't bring it back, same as white.

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Within the a7s itself, the cine1 gamma goes to superwhites and the cine2 gamma doesn't. If you didn't know/understand this and just looked at them both to "see differences" and declared "the cine1 highlights are clipped, this needs to be fixed!", or "the cine2 highlights are washed out, this needs to be fixed", then that would be incorrect.

Well that's weird. I'm sure I said I shot in S-LOG2. Oh wait. I did :)

Not Cine1. Not Cine2. We are talking about S-LOG here.

As far as noise goes, there is clearly more noise reduction going on in the 1dc (regardless of what the camera is telling you) than the a7s which appears to be applying none or little.

Nope that's incorrect, I'm sorry to break it to you. Just imagine I have a friendly face and a smile whilst I give you the bad news and we won't get into an Internet Debate.

The very deepest blacks start to break up on the A7S with noise because you reach the end of the usable dynamic range, it's not an ISO issue. You can see the same in a raw still shot at ISO 200, just bring the shadows up very high. What do you see? Yes noise.

That's why we talk about dynamic range and USABLE dynamic range.

I personally would prefer to apply some chroma NR on the a7s file in post (just like I do to all my RAW photos) and keep some grain-like luma noise and the extra detail, than have the baked in NR and loss of details on the 1dc.

Loss of detail? It's a dynamic range test shot. I didn't even focus it properly. When I do the resolution test shot I'll make sure the focus is nailed on both cameras. Didn't need to on this shot.

It's starting to sound like a case of post purchase rationalisation for the 1dc at this point.

Post fact rationalisation more like.

Having said that, I think we can all agree that colours on the a7s are a pain in the ass!

Haha. Yes. We agree on that. Maybe the Internet Argument can be averted after all. New years resolution. Avoid internet arguments :)

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Canon EoS 1DC make better image, in our test color and definition are really impressive. Sony a7s with Shogun is good but not enough to bit the 1DC image. I know are very different in price class but this is the reality.

At the moment I don't have a fast connection so I upload a little original clip of the 1DC:

http://www.mediafire.com/watch/utu9pre07x6t3ud

​Indeed this is what I see as well.

No bias! When you all pick up your 1D Cs for cheap in 2015 you will thank me for recommending it :)

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​With my eyes! You can't see it? Crushed blacks and a highlight that burns sooner on the A7S S-LOG? C'mon dude. Black is black you can't bring it back, same as white.

​Fair enough, with your eyes! Kindly gaze at the image below and look carefully at the red arrows and describe the features which look more visible on the 1DC vs. the A7S. I used your example image, so it's fair game- other images aren't relevant for this discussion.

1DCvA7S.thumb.jpg.3d7ad22504480d5f3f1815

Here's what I see, arrows left to right, top to bottom:

  1. The lettering and detail is much clearer for the A7S, the 1DC is barely visible.
  2. The white letters/marks for the lens info are pretty much invisible on the 1DC and two large white elements and smaller white elements are visible on the A7S.
  3. Lettering and detail more visible on the A7S.
  4. The stain is much more visible on the A7S.

bezerk55 processed the image completely differently, and the results are clear there as well: the A7S has more DR in this image than the 1DC. That's two perceivers to one seeing the A7S having more DR in this test image. Any others?

This doesn't need to be an argument- it's a puzzle to be solved, a search for truth. If we focus on the search for truth and leave out confrontational and antagonistic language, we can all learn something new without argument. We can save the drama for our scripts ;)

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​Fair enough, with your eyes! Kindly gaze at the image below and look carefully at the red arrows and describe the features which look more visible on the 1DC vs. the A7S. I used your example image, so it's fair game- other images aren't relevant for this discussion.

1DCvA7S.thumb.jpg.3d7ad22504480d5f3f1815

Here's what I see, arrows left to right, top to bottom:

  1. The lettering and detail is much clearer for the A7S, the 1DC is barely visible.
  2. The white letters/marks for the lens info are pretty much invisible on the 1DC and two large white elements and smaller white elements are visible on the A7S.
  3. Lettering and detail more visible on the A7S.
  4. The stain is much more visible on the A7S.

bezerk55 processed the image completely differently, and the results are clear there as well: the A7S has more DR in this image than the 1DC. That's two perceivers to one seeing the A7S having more DR in this test image. Any others?

This doesn't need to be an argument- it's a puzzle to be solved, a search for truth. If we focus on the search for truth and leave out confrontational and antagonistic language, we can all learn something new without argument. We can save the drama for our scripts ;)

​I think your examples clearly shows the Sony advantage. In my opinion there are even better areas for comparison like the strap lug and the front control dial on the Nikon. If you can show this advantage on a small web jpeg, the real world advantages on the original 4k files with proper pp could be significant. Maybe Andrew should make the original clips available for download to demonstrate this. On the other hand I suspect that this discussion is not technical anymore.

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I'm not sure how you've graded that, it doesn't look like what I get. Might not be your fault, you are grading a heavily web compressed JPEG after all.

I get a stop more detail in the highlight and at least 1-2 stops cleaner shadows...

Top A7S 4K S-LOG and bottom 1D C MJPEG.

(Click to enlarge to see the noise grain in the shadows and on table surface)

That's what I mean by 'usable'. You have to crush the blacks on the A7S to get rid of the noise in the shadows. On the 1D C you can leave the shadows 'as-is'.

They both have a 0% curve in Film Convert on to try and exceed the maximum dynamic range that's usable... to show as an example. No artistic merit :) I know it looks awful on both!

S-LOG 2 needs fixing for 4K it isn't working right.

And how is purple chromatic aberration the fault of the camera? It's a lens thing anyway.

​Kindly gaze at my sample images, which are graded from the original files. Kind of matters that!

Now look at the size of the highlight. How much of it is white on the top shot and how much on the bottom? The area which is burnt to white is larger on the A7S.

Now look at the shadows. Pretty similar but the A7S has more noise in them, therefore they require a pull down to hide the noise. Noise reduction will just make them look muddy and kill the detail.

It's not about that purple splat of paint, it is not a highlight and it isn't burnt in either!

Need to do a proper test to make it clearer to people without eyes.

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Next test. This one is a bit clearer I think.

Click to enlarge them.

The shot contains a GH4 to represents the blacks / lows and out of the window at the top I've cropped out the tree line / sky for the highs.

The shot of the GH4 on the 1D C shot is usable, the A7S isn't, or at least needs cleaning up. There's also moire and aliasing on the lens rings. You get these noisy blacks at ISO 3200 at the bottom of the S-LOG file. What I do is to of course apply a curve to the file to get contrast back, crush the noisy blacks away, get colour looking right and tonality spot on. I have always crushed these parts of the image away by 1-2 stops because that's what you're supposed to do with LOG. Those blacks look awful if you keep them as-is. The blacks are so cinematic and milky clean on the 1D C I can keep them if I want to. If you clean up the noise in the A7S blacks with noise reduction software, the image overall will still look bad. So they need to go. Nobody can say looking at the shot above that the A7S looks better than the 1D C. I am not bringing bias into it, it's science pure and simple.

The tree line out of the window represents the highlights. Here the A7S is doing a hard clip to white above the tree branches and the 1D C goes beyond the trees to maintain some of the bright clouds. Well, as bright as the sky gets in January in England anyway!! Subtle difference. To find out how many stops DR each give I need a chart and I am not a chart tester. I am certain the 1D C is giving me more usable dynamic range though.

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Andrew, I can see it now too, the 1DC seems to have a slight edge in DR. BUT the much more obvious lack of detail in the 1DCs footage is VERY distracting, so it might be a good idea, to choose lenses and focus in a way to get the maximum resolution out of both. Just to make sure we can discuss dynamic range without any distraction. :-)

 

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Andrew, I can see it now too, the 1DC seems to have a slight edge in DR. BUT the much more obvious lack of detail in the 1DCs footage is VERY distracting, so it might be a good idea, to choose lenses and focus in a way to get the maximum resolution out of both. Just to make sure we can discuss dynamic range without any distraction. :-)

​The 4K from the 1D C with sharpness on 0 in Canon LOG is softer than the A7S S-LOG on default settings but the detail is there and it's more solid and more organic in the rendering. The A7S is sharp but it looks more video-ish and has moire & aliasing. Quite surprising considering how clean the internal 1080p was.

1D C clearly has a stronger anti-aliasing filter. That's a good thing. The detail is still there and you can bring it out with sharpening but sharpening 4K is bloody pointless! It only makes your full frame less cinematic when projected, the sharpness kinda crawls around and looks more digital, more 'GH2'. The extra detail through sharpening is only really visible at 1:1. It's a bit like the difference between the Epic and GH4. Yes one is sharper but is it really more detailed? More cinematic? No.

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Here's a quick detail test.

1:1 crops first...

1D C (Canon LOG) 4K

1D C (Canon LOG) 4K with digital sharpening on (in post)

Sony A7S (SLOG 2) 4K to Shogun

And the full 4K frames for your downloading... click to enlarge then drag to desktop...

1D C (Canon LOG)

A7S (S-LOG 2)

Both straight out of the camera and ungraded. You can see where the Sony's SLOG get's it yellow tint from that you have to fix in post very carefully to get colour working right.

If you have an A7S and Shogun it remains an amazing image for the price.

It's just that I think the 1D C if it drops to the same price or even a bit more it's a no brainer, it's more cinematic and easier to work with.

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What happens if you turn on noise reduction on the A7s? Without getting into color the canon looks mushy specially in the shadows, but not the blur you get from the low pass filter but the one that comes from canon shadow noise +noise reduction+ codec.

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I turn it off because essentially it's a crude version of what you can do in post. I'll try some in post and try to match them, in terms of both the LOG output and final graded image. A7S offers a lot of bang for buck.

Need that internal 4K though!

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I am seeing differences in exposure in most of the recent comparisons/tests posted this general forum.  In both of the tests shown in this particular thread, it appears to my eyes that the A7s images are brighter overall than the 1D C images.

 

Can we additionally shoot gray scales and charts, and match the brightness on a middle gray shade in one comparison, match black shade in another comparison and match white in another comparison?  Such tests might give us a clearer idea of what's going on.

 

Also, with most monitors, it is easier and more accurate to compare images if they are posted side-by-side, rather than one above the other.

 

Thanks, and Happy New Year!
 

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Maybe the winner, is in the centre of the picture..The GH4 ;)..easy to use..great 1080p, 4K inside, APS-C option (speed booster), light weight, weather sealed , battery life, al lot of users..new firmware updates will come and also very very nice..it's only 1500,-  I have seen so much good footage coming from a GH4.. that we do not have to call it or lets say that it doesn't have to be 'video like'! 

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